


Cognizant

by timefornothing



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Coding, Computers, Mentions of Drowning, Simulation, Trapped, are they real? who knows, ill add more tags later but this is a mess lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timefornothing/pseuds/timefornothing
Summary: The command prompt had to come from somewhere, right? But Seven can't find it. He has no idea where it came from, or what it does, but he does know this--this game is different. He's different. And that's worrying, because, well--He's awake. He's aware he's awake.But if he was just some computer program, how could he have ever really been asleep?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lmao this is a mess, i'm not totally sure where i'm going with it yet, or if i'll even continue it.
> 
> let me know if you all like it and i'll add more! thanks for reading!

He's awake.

Well, no, that's not quite it.

He shifts a bit, blinking-- _blinking, really blinking_ \--in the light that's suddenly surrounding him.

He's _aware_ he's awake.

The light must have been what woke him up, but if he was just a computer program, how could he have really ever been asleep?

It's strange. He can feel his body, can feel the extension of his limbs to his fingers and toes, can feel the brush of fabric as his jacket rustles around his body--but he can't see it. He's floating, invisible even to himself, in a dim blue room with a single bright screen in front of him.

Something doesn't sit right in his gut as he looks at the screen, but he pushes the feeling aside.

He can recall his command prompts. _Character: 707, real name Saeyoung Choi, baptismal name Luciel Choi. A deep route character,_ with spoiler heavy tidbits strewn throughout the others routes while his own is the most revealing. _Hacker, car enthusiast, loves Jumin's cat._

 _Jumin._ The name sends a flare of shock through him, waking him up a bit more as the adrenaline jolts through his body. Or, does it? If he can't see his body, how does he know it's really there? Or that the adrenaline's there? It could be just--

Stop. Right, back to the current situation. He can debate on whether he's real or not later.

 _Jumin._ As if in response to his thoughts, another screen flickers to life and quickly pulls up another program's command prompts.

_Jumin Han. Deep route character, rich, loves Elizabeth 3rd._

"Elly." Seven whispers out loud, a smile quirking his face. The name brings more emotions, and with it, a deeper sense of clarity. As quickly as he can, he recalls every other person he can remember.

 _Rika,_ but she's gone. Not enough there to worry about.

 _V, real name_ \--doesn't matter, but V's command prompts are there on the screen as well, even if his list is much shorter than the others.

_Yoosung Kim, college kid, always so positive--_

_Zen, real name Hyun Ryu, actor, obsessed with himself._ The description alone is enough to bring a snort of laughter from Seven, and he hurriedly reads on to the last few.

_Jaehee Kang, Jumin's assisstant, best friend to ______._

Seven pulls back, squints a bit, then shakes it off. There's blank spots all over everyone's command prompts. It's probably just waiting for input from the player.

The player.

Something twinges deep in his gut, another weird feeling, but again, he pushes it aside. He can figure out what all those bad feelings mean later. Right now, he needs to know why he's awake.

He scans over the last few character commands, skims through the first few pages of code for the beginning of the story, but there's nothing weird. It looks like it'll be just another simple execution of the game, so why--

A screen flickers on behind him, and he spins around, wishing he had his hands so he could use his mouse and keyboard. He feels so strangely useless without a real body. Not that he's ever had one before, he guesses. He's a computer program-- _stop denying it, brain_ \--so technically, he's never had a body. Or a brain. It's probably just from dreaming or something while he was under.

Except computer programs _can't dream,_ Luciel.

He shakes his head, looking back to the new screen that had just come on. It's the same code that he was reading on the other screen, the stuff that gets the game going. Except one line is highlighted in bright red where everything else was the same dull green on black.

**\\\command=COGNIZE +7LC//  
** **\\\no terminal//**  
**== >**

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Seven cocks his head, rereading the highlighted portion again and again. He's never seen a command like that, could have no idea what it even means. He compares it to his other screen, where he was first reading, and finds that the command isn't there. It's gotta mean something, right?

"Maybe a different game?" He wonders aloud, then shakes his head. No, every game is the same. A series of commands that all leads to different outcomes, yeah, but they are all the same. No variation in the code. Ever. So why is this different?

Why is _he_ different this time around?

After his twentieth time reading it, he realizes that the arrow means he needs to hit enter. The command was put in, but never executed. He instinctively reaches forward to put it in, hating when he finds errors in his own code, might as well fix it--

He hesitates.

He doesn't know what this code is. He doesn't know for sure if this is--if this is why--he doesn't know. He doesn't know. What happens if he deletes it and runs the game as normal? Does he go back to sleep? Back to the blackness? Back to the suspended animation, to the dreamless sleep, back to being nothing, _buried under a program in the dark with no way out?_

In a surge of fear, he rushes forward, pushing enter with all he has. The screen flashes three dots below it, flashes them six times while he works to calm himself back down. On the seventh flash, the entire screen lights up, and around him, the space shakes. He can feel something squeezing tighter, like he's being constricted. Seven lets out a shout, and then he's spun quickly in midair.

The light fades a second later, and when he stops spinning, Seven puts a hand on his chest, feeling it hit heavily with a thump. What on earth just--

………

Did his hand thump?

Quickly, he glances down, and almost shouts in joy. His body is back. There's his sneakers, his old ratty jeans, his jacket that hangs just too low on his arms. Seven quickly pushes his glasses back up his nose when they threaten to fall-- _his glasses!_ God, he never thought he'd miss those old things--and pushes his hair back, his smile so wide he feels like he might tear his face in half.

With a whoosh, his legs buckle under him and he lands in a familiar chair and gets shoved behind his definitely familiar desk. His three monitors surround him, along with his keyboard with the missing F9 button and his mouse with the chip in the side where he used to pick at it. The desk and chair aren't sitting on anything, as far as he's aware, it's all just dark, and his computers aren't plugged into anything at all, but it's all working. Yoosung and everyone else are still pulled up on the right hand monitor with the regular game coding waiting to run on the left, and the screen in the middle is now blank.

Reverently, he runs his hands over his old desk, almost feeling tears prick at his eyes. He never thought he'd say this, ever, but _holy shit_ does it feel good to be tangible again.

 _Again?_ His brain echoes back mockingly, and he scowls and pushes the thought aside.

It feels good to be tangible, for the _first time,_ obviously. He's never been tangible before, duh. Just a slip of the tongue. He's pretty emotional, alright?

In between him looking in his drawer for his chips and playing with his necklace, the screen in the middle comes back to life, a bright white screen that fades into a game company's logo before the start menu for the game pops up. Seven smirks nostalgically, taking in the chibified version of his friends faces surrounding a table. God, how long has it been since he's had Yoosung's cooking?

_Never, right?_

Shit. Remembering this is the first time he's been alive is gonna be pretty hard.

Something clicks the start button, and he's taken to the start menu where someone can sign up. Opening up the bag of chips he finds, he watches curiously. It looks like a new game's been started.

When prompted for a name, the user puts in Melanie, and Seven shrugs. Eh, not his favorite, but he'll work with it. He watches idly as the middle screen takes the player through the beginning, snorts when he realizes he still has to hit enter for his own preprogrammed responses to pop up, finds it interesting to actually sit and watch the conversation take place for once. When he was--asleep? On idle mode? Whatever--it just kind of...flowed around him. Through him. He didn't really have a chance to actually do anything, which annoyed his hacker ass to bits. Now, he can type his own message, follow along with the script that's scrolling next to him on the right hand screen, and it almost feels like he's really talking to them. All of them.

He smiles as Zen and Jumin do their usual pissing contest, watch as Jaehee tries and fails to keep things civil, watch Yoosung's over eager personality take over the screen. It takes a minute, but he realizes he's crying. He misses his friends, dammit. No, not just his friends, his family. The RFA had been the closest family he's ever had, despite all of the stupid plot twists the game will bring up later, and he loves them. He almost wishes he could message them outside of the game, send them a funny joke or something just to see their reaction.

But no, he's tied to the already decided messages, and can only talk to them when the user has a new chatroom pop up. Melanie's going the suspicious route, keeps asking who is everyone, and he smiles to himself, tears slowly drying.

 _Who are we?_ He echoes in his head, then looks down at his hands. He still can't totally believe that they're there. Visible, tangible, whole, useful. He has hands again.

Not _again,_ he has hands for the _first time._

His gut twists again, and this time, he frowns. Something still isn't sitting right with all of this. He can't put his finger on it, but something isn't adding up.

He looks back to the screen, watches as Melanie accepts the invitation to join the RFA.

_Who are we?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay apparently you guys really liked it so here's some more of this mess

The first day of the game is the most boring, Seven thinks to himself as he kicks his feet up and watches his screen. The most happens, for sure, because multiple conversations can be clicked through one after another for the player, but it's still boring. Everyone's vague whenever they mention anything, and it's a lot of the same thing being said over and over again.

Yoosung's welcome is first, and Seven almost cringes at how eager he seems. But that's just how he always was--eager, optimistic, always ready. Smiling was his go to deflection, and he pulled it off well.

Seven swallowed as another wave of nostalgia hit him. He really had grown fond of those boys over the course of the hundreds of games. It didn't matter that all of them argued constantly, the same way over and over, and it didn't matter to him that he might not have technically ever met them. They were his family.

Although that line of wondering did bring up some interesting questions--

"I think you two would get along pretty well!"

Seven laughs out loud that time, PhD Pepper spilling a bit out of his mouth. "Of course we'll get along, it's a dating sim, we're all supposed to get along with her." He shook his head, watching as the messages continued scrolling along the screen. The monitor with the codes scrolled along at a faster pace to his left, and although he wouldn't admit it, he was keeping an eye out for any more red coding.

_It can't just have been an anomaly, it had to have meant something, it has to mean something, why am I here, why am I AWAKE--_

Jaehee's first conversation is always cringe worthy as well, but she means well. Jaehee always holds herself to such a high standard that no one else can fail her requirements, either. She does loosen up a bit along her route, but it takes a bit. 

Then it came time for Seven to text her for the first time, wait for the response, send the right message, and then call Melanie for the first time. He hears the faint echo of the Korean voice actor reading his lines--Does he actually sound like that? And were they all Korean? He never really put too much thought into it. The game company certainly is. He can't tell just from the feel of his face, nor the anime-esque drawing of him used in the game. For that matter, what language is he thinking in? What if he's just thinking in code? If he ever did talk to someone, would they be able to understand him?

He's hit by another urge, one to see his friends, and not just talk to them. He's sure he remembers actually seeing them somewhere, outside of the game, but he can't quite recall the memory. It's hazy, hard to decipher. A lot of his memories of outside the game are.

_How can you have memories outside the game if you're nothing but a computer program?_

Seven snaps his gaze back to the screen, swallowing down the fear from that train of thought. He forces himself to watch and listen as everyone calls Melanie one by one, testing the call and text feature of the app, forces himself to put it out of his mind. _Don't think about it, don't think about that._ He laughs at Jumin's awkward first conversation, smiles as he watches Zen complain and try and fail to flirt with Melanie, watches Yoosung continue to chat with the new girl earnestly. Melanie's responses are pretty skewed throughout the conversations, it seems. So, either she doesn't care what route she gets, or she's never played before and doesn't know that the different colored hearts mean something. Seven suspects the second, just based on the fact that each conversation happens in rapid succession, like she had the first whole day downloaded at once. She'll move into real time once she finishes the first day, and then Seven will have hours with which to occupy himself.

Great.

As the 'Seven loves cats' conversation rolls through, Seven's struck by a thought. He's a hacker, isn't he? So why shouldn't he be able to hack into things? Things such as….the player's phone?

It's just a few lines of code away, or at least it should be. He can feel his fingers twitching, already knowing what he'd do if he had really traced whose phone was in the app from Rika's apartment. He glances at the left hand screen, dutifully scrolling along and keeping the game going without Seven's prompts. He could just open another window, start up a simple program to run…

His hands are moving before he tells them to, muscle memory propelling him along at the speed of light. It happens so quickly that he has to pause for a second and blink, staring at the screen. He has it. Right there. Damn, he's good. Access to her phone outside of the app is right there.

He's not even a computer program, he's in a _phone app?_

He allows himself ten seconds to groan at the realization, and then he's back to staring at the screen and debating. Is that really an invasion of privacy? Some of the others joked around about it in the first couple conversations, but Seven doesn't really think so. It's not like he was looking at anything bad! Just making sure that she was a good person in-game. Or whatever.

He doesn't go through with it. If this person's a real person--which they probably are, since they're playing the game--they don't deserve to get messed with by a program. They'd probably think it was a virus. Is he a virus? Is that why he's so different now?

Instead, he forces himself to sit on his hands and watch the rest of the Day One conversations roll by. There's a two hour time period where she doesn't even open the app--probably dealing with Real Life Problems--and then she's back to finish out the day. The last conversation ends at 23:20, and then she has to wait until midnight for the Day Two conversations to begin. So far, Zen's in the lead with hearts, but Seven's not far behind. It's always like that in the beginning. Zen and Yoosung usually have the lead (unless the player is aiming for a certain route) and then someone else will come along by the end. Then the player will finish out the game, reset, and aim for another person, rinse, and repeat. 

00:38 rolls around, and Melanie enters the chatroom right on time, and Seven watches all over again as Day Two begins. It's not hard to pass the time watching the conversations, it's the time in between them that aggravates him. He has nothing to do. He sits and debates trying to hack in the code, seeing what all he can change, but he's too afraid he'll screw something up. He's just taking the safe route, is all. So he sits and watches as Melanie plugs in option after option, watches the heart counter tick up on each of his friends, watches with a funny feeling in his chest as Yoosung takes the lead.

It's hard not to get attached, especially when the red hearts are flying with every response the player chooses. It's hard to remember that they're preprogrammed responses, that she's not actually agreeing with everything user 707 puts into the chat. It's a dating sim, he keeps telling himself. She's supposed to get along with us. But……...still. When the conversations of Day Two are about 76% done, he can't take it anymore, and goes to look at the code. 

Everything is in place as it should be, except for the line of bright red at the beginning. It's not repeated anywhere else in the whole game, so it's a one time instance thing, most likely. And 7LC? What could that even be referring to? 

...Is there an way for him to see all the options of command codes?

Hesitantly, he types in >Code Options in another window and waits to see what it does. After a moment, a list pops up quickly, and only once is there a red prompt. The same one, granted, but it was an option all along. The list glitches out after a second, leaving some impartial and broken codes toward the bottom, but Seven doesn't see those. He's still staring at the option, rolling the word _Cognize_ over and over again in his head. He's not stupid, he knows Cognize is likely short for cognizant, which is a synonym for awake. So he was right earlier when he said he woke up.

Does that mean he could've been woken up any time before this?

But more importantly, who woke him up?


	3. Chapter 3

Seven is having a crisis of faith, and it has nothing to do with his religion.

Then again, if he's living in a game app, is God real? He still doesn't even know if _he's_ real, any less the figure his whole faith is based on. But that's not the problem right now.

The problem is he doesn't think anything they're talking about in the game happened. He feels like he remembers them, but he doesn't. It took him a while to sort it out, somewhere in the middle of the night between Day Two and Day Three, he realized that he actually didn't know a Rika. He thinks. Kind of. He knows a Rika in game, knows her plotline and what all that was--but he doesn't really remember her. The same goes for V, somewhat. There's the vague feeling that the name sounds familiar, like something out of a dream, but his only memories are of a chat log in the game.

It's not the same for the others, however. He knows he knows his friends, he feels that ache every time one of their names pop up on screen, he knows it's been too long since he's seen them, and he misses them. It's a real feeling, real emotions, unlike when he thinks about Rika or V. He has fuzzy memories of Yoosung cooking for him, of Jumin smiling when he thought Seven couldn't see while he was playing with Elly, he has real memories of helping Zen memorize a scene for a play. Hell, he even remembers looking down at Jaehee and calling her a little sister. Granted, all of these memories are like watching them through muddy water, but they're still there.

He has repressed memories. Whether he repressed them or something else repressed them for him, he's still deciding, but they're there. It's kind of hard not to picture he's in a sci fi movie, something like the Matrix, when he thinks about all this. He vaguely recalls V reinforcing how stupid the Matrix was, but he doesn't care. What if he's slowly waking up, and then suddenly he's gonna pop out of some stasis chamber and rescue all of his friends?

He knows that's ridiculous.

He imagines it anyways.

His crisis of faith is mostly around realizing that the things happening in game are things that never happened to him. Sure, he can picture Yoosung giving up video games, and Zen probably overworking himself for acting, and Seven knows for sure that Jumin depends too much on Jaehee, but none of it is real. He's kind of shocked how often he says he has to go to work, and wonders what that's all about. The more he thinks about it not being real, he wonders where these memories come from, and wondered why he could never tell they weren't real before.

After that came the thoughts of, "Well, if the memories aren't real, are our personalities real? Or did we just get them from the game? Is Zen actually that narcissistic, or is he in reality a sweet kid? Is Zen real? Zen's not his real name, but who decided to go by Zen? Him, or did the computer decide for him?" and so forth in that line of thought. There was about a half an hour period where he thinks he had a panic attack, but he doesn't remember anything other than breathing really hard. So, yeah, probably blacked out a bit from overthinking. That's totally normal. 

_Computer programs can't have panic attacks._

Finally, he decides to just list in his head what he believes, and roll with that until he has more evidence.

First off, he knows he's real. He can edit code, and change things, and that wouldn't be possible if he was really just a computer program. Free will, and all that.

Second, he knows his friends are real. Whether they're out there somewhere or in similar positions as him, he's not sure yet, but he knows they're there. They have to be.

Third, Melanie's phone is his way to the real world. That's the lock and his hacking is the key. He could learn anything he wanted if he would just let himself into her phone. But for some reason, he keeps holding back. If he had to give it a reason, he'd say it's because he's scared. What if he finds out he isn't real? What if he finds out he IS real? Both possibilities are terrifying, and he's decided to just stick to what he can do from within the app for now.

So that's his shortlist. One panic attack, two spilled PhD Peppers and three mental breakdowns later, that's what he's decided to work with. Now he just has to figure out where to go from here.

Melanie's nearing the end of Day Three now, meaning that Seven's been cognizant (yeah, he's gonna keep using that word) for about 50 hours, give or take a few. He hasn't accomplished much in that time, but whatever. He can start now. Better late than never, right?

He's watching himself message Jaehee and Melanie (the computer him, not real him) talk about how the place he works locks him in during the day with a weird sense of deja vu. He still hasn't totally figured out why his stomach is in knots, but a lot of the tension was released when he realized he is a real person, just stuck in a game for some reason. That feeling there tells him he knows what's going on, but there's more repressed memories to figure out. Oh, yeah.

Fourth, he knows that he knows something. But he doesn't know _what_ he knows, and he's not sure how to remember it yet.

He thinks his friends are the key to remembering. Earlier, when he remembered them, it felt like a veil had been lifted. And every time he remembers something about them, it's as if more and more wool is being removed from his ears. Eyes? How does that saying go? Either way, it helps. Now, he just needs to start remembering the right things, and not just Yoosung's favorite color to wear as socks.

(It's green.)

Bored as he waits for another conversation to start, he tries to decipher the glitched out codes at the bottom of the commands list. Some of the words are different colors, like his weird red lines at the beginning, but all of this is absolute gibberish. 4HR? CAPSIZE + 2V? It's literally just a bunch of letters and numbers, not even the usual coding ones. Frustrated, he scrolls past, scanning over the next few lines. He wants to figure it out, but his eyes keep being drawn back to one more red line.

**\\\begin terminal for ______ //**

The red lines at the beginning had said "no terminal", so was this code the one to override that? Or to change it? Maybe end the prompt? If it did end the prompt, would he go back to sleep?

Or would it take him completely out of the game?

Shocked that his mind jumped to that, Seven scooted back about a foot in his chair, holding his hands on his lap. His heartbeat fluttered just a bit too quickly for his liking, so he took a few deep breaths. Probably gonna ignore that line of code for now. The most interesting part was the blank space after it, meaning that--

Seven sat up, eyes wide behind his glasses. That means that it's not only to end his prompt. He can end _someone else's code_. And if he can end someone else's code--

"Then I can wake the others up."

He sat in silence for a minute, listening as the echo of his whisper faded around him. Then, with a hopeful smile, he repeated more forcefully, "I can wake the others up."

He let out a shout of excitement, spinning his wheely chair in a wide circle. Nevermind that he had no idea how, nevermind that he didn't know what their codes were, nevermind that it was probably a bad idea. He had a way to talk to his friends, to get back to them, to get back to their lives that he knew existed out there somewhere.

For the first time in his whole wakeful experience, Seven felt hope.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys have been so sweet commenting on this (: thanks everyone for the kudos! i'll do my best to keep this going <3

Since he was a computer program, he didn't really need to sleep.

Seven sat back from reading the codes and rubbed his eyes. He didn't feel tired, so that meant that wherever his real body was, it was probably being kept in a constant state of rest...if he had a real body. Jury's still out on that part. After all, he could just be a brain in a jar hooked up to a machine and riding out the memories of a past life. (That was one of the weirder trains of thoughts he entertained.) But still, it felt weird being awake for so long and not sleeping. Besides, he wasn't getting anywhere with these codes, they still made zero sense to him. It was kind of hard trying to make sense of something when you had no idea what the basis for it was.

Melanie was now well into Day Four, and it was looking like she'd end up in Yoosung's route. Again, not surprising. Seven watched her conversation with Jaehee for a moment, then sighed and leaned his head on his arms, which were resting on his desk. Well, no time like the present to try and nap, or something.

To his surprise, as he closed his eyes, he could feel himself falling asleep instantly. He yawned, and the next time his eyes blinked closed, he fell asleep.

And he didn't just sleep, he dreamed.

_Seven dreamed--_

"We've got to go, we've got to get out of here--"

"They took her! Oh, God, they got her, they got her--"

"Yoosung! We do not have time for this--"

"Christ, Jumin, cut him a break, can't you see he just lost--"

"Boys, we really need to be moving, as soon as possible."

The voices roiled around him like tidal waves, panic apparent and tension so thick it was palpable. He could feel the hesitation, could feel the wariness. Then a flash of bright blue broke his vision, and he was thrown forward. A familiar face, but he couldn't place it, looking down at him with worry.

"This is for your own good. I promise we'll come back."

He felt a flare of anger in his chest, and then someone shoved his head underwater and held him there.

Seven struggled. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, and oh god the darkness was there and _it was surrounding him and he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe--_

Seven sat up with a jolt, chest heaving for air. He coughed a bit, inhaling too much, and sat there, hands clutching the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles turned white. His body was shaking as he tried to control his breathing, but he couldn't escape the memory, of that feeling that he was drowning, oh god, _why wouldn't they let him up--_

Was he dead?

Seven glanced warily over his shoulder, to the darkness that stretched on behind him that he dutifully ignored as much as possible. Was he dead, and this was purgatory? Or was he in hell? No way would his heaven include him being locked away forever inside a stupid app.

He looked down to his hands again, still clutching the desk like a lifeline. ...No, he decided. He wasn't dead. He had felt like he was drowning, yeah, but that didn't feel like the end of the memory. It had felt like it continued. Seven lifted his gaze to the computer, thoughts twisting in his head. It felt like it was still going on.

He shook his head. This was ridiculous. He had already decided to stop debating his own mortality, remember? That was item number one on the list of things he believed. He was here, he was stuck, and he was going to get out.

Refocusing his eyes, he realized the monitor was showing the text messages between Yoosung and Melanie on Day Four. Yoosung had just sent the message, "I don't know why but I wanted to tell you first :)" and Melanie was prompted for a response between two options.

After a moment, she responded, "Keep telling me all about it! :)" Seven looked at it for a minute, confused, and then reached out and paused the code running the game without looking away from the screen. He hated to admit this, but he knew the whole script of every route like the back of his hand, like he had written it himself. And for the life of him, he could not figure out where that response had come from.

That wasn't one of the options. Melanie hadn't picked either of the options. It was close, yeah, only a few words different, but it was still wrong. She had...Did she write her own?

Fingers twitching, Seven quickly wrote a code to make a pop up appear and say, "Sorry, command not recognized, please try again." and then reran the two options for her response. It took a few more minutes, but Melanie finally responded with "Continue reporting to me asap :)"

There we go. Back on track.

Seven sat back, slouching a bit. How had she done that? There was no keyboard in the app, no way to type a response. You just had the two boxes to click on and pick. How the hell had she written her own response?

Slowly, Seven's eyes trailed back to the left hand monitor, and he pulled up all the command options, looking again at his red text.

Was she the one responsible for this?

Seven glanced at the game again, then frowned. He wouldn't mess with the chatrooms, didn't want to screw up something major, but the next time his character messaged Melanie one on one wasn't for another few hours. Sighing and resigning himself to another few hours of scanning coded gibberish, he turned back to his monitor, planning in the back of his mind how to test it out.

Surprisingly, the time passed quickly, and he watched the app send off the messages of him teasing Jaehee about being a robot. Annoyingly, Melanie didn't try it again, and he wondered if it was just a fluke the first time. That was totally possible. He was known to overthink things and get himself in a right fit. But...still. His gut instinct was telling him there was something to this, and his gut was all he had to rely on in here.

So, instead of letting the usual responses send, he paused that program and typed out his own message to her response.

**And why should I do that, Melanie? :P**

Seven paused, waiting with baited breath. Would she even bother trying again after he had sent the error message earlier? Stupid Seven, he should have just let it go--

**Because you like me :P**

Seven's eyes widened, and then his mouth dropped open.

Melanie was literally writing her own responses into the app. Unable to help himself, he responded again, being sure to send the little red heart symbol flying across the screen.

**Now now, that wasn't one of the programmed responses. How are you doing that?**

There was a longer pause this time, and Seven wondered vaguely if he was freaking her out. Honestly, a computer coming to life and talking to him was his ultimate fantasy, but he could see where other people might get a little scared. Maybe he should tone it down a bit.

**If I told you, I'd have to kill you. Or uninstall, your choice.^^**

Seven could have screamed with joy. There was now no doubt in his mind that she had been the one to wake him up, whether intentionally or not. Somehow, she had gotten her hands on a royally messed up version of the app and caused him to wake up. Really, he should be thanking her.

 **Looks like we'll have to come back to that later then!** And then he sent another quickly, **Does the word 'Cognize' mean anything to you?**

After a couple minutes, she responded.

**A button with the word popped up early on in the game, yeah, but otherwise no.**

Seven grinned. Accidental, but she had still done it. Or, at least set it in motion.

They were getting somewhere now.

He resumed the usual scroll of code for the game, letting the automated responses roll again and the game continued. Hope renewed, he turned back to the screen with the other codes, looking at the different colors. They had to stand for his friends, he was positive of that now. They most likely corresponded with the heart colors for the game, which is why his was red. (He's pissed it took him until now to realize that. Honestly, what an idiot.) So the purple code was for Jumin, green Yoosung, grey for Zen and yellow for Jaehee. The only blue code was for the CAPSIZE + 2V code, but that didn't make sense. Was V not trapped in the game like the others? 

Seven decided he had to run that code first, before he even attempted to wake the others up. He wanted to now everything he possibly could before he even thought about letting them know what was going on. He bit his lip, looking to Yoosung's past conversations with Melanie. So optimistic, so determined to be the best…….yeah. He had to wait.

It's not that he didn't want his friends to know, it's just that he didn't want them to worry excessively before he had it figured out. It's a need to know basis from now on, with Seven deciding who and when to tell what. 

(If it turns out he can't get them out of here, he doesn't even know if he wants to wake them up. The memories of drowning correspond too greatly in his mind to the ones of being trapped in here, and he doesn't want to make _anyone_ feel like that, ever.)

Pulling out a notebook and pen from his desk, he quickly scribbled out all of the weirdly colored lines and the codes that don't make sense, putting them in categories and brainstorming what they could mean. The game runs on steadily beside him, and Melanie doesn't try anything else for the time being. After twenty minutes, he's mostly organized, although there's still a few factors he wants to test before he runs them.

And who better to test on than himself?

The CAPSIZE code seems to be open ended, like it's meant to be tied in with another program to run that one in order to work. Letting out a nervous puff of air, Seven types in his little box **\\\command = 7LC: CAPSIZE + 2V//** and watches as it pops up in red text with only the 2V in blue. Huh, interesting. But, no going back now.

Shaking his head, he pushes his glasses back up his nose and reaches forward his finger to hit the enter button.

Time to capsize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything is being written on the fly~~~ plot? what's that? never heard of her


End file.
